device for reducing a gas or vapour to a liquid. Condensers are employed in power plants to condense exhaust steam from turbines and in refrigeration plants to condense refrigerant vapours, such as ammonia and fluorinated hydrocarbons. The petroleum...

method of transporting freight by placing it in large containers. Containerization is an important cargo-moving technique developed in the 20th century. Road-and-rail containers, sealed boxes of standard sizes, were used early in the century; but it...

any of various devices that provide mechanized movement of material, as in a factory; they are used principally in industrial applications but also on large farms, in warehousing and freight-handling, and in movement of raw materials. Conveyors may be...

china manufacturer who first produced an English true hard-paste porcelain similar to that of the Chinese and Germans. Cookworthy was apprenticed at 14 to a London apothecary, who later set him up in a business, Bevans and Cookworthy, at Plymouth. He...

American inventor, manufacturer, and philanthropist who built the “Tom Thumb” locomotive and founded The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York City. Son of a Revolutionary War army officer who went into a succession of businesses...

the extraction of copper from its ores and the preparation of copper metal or chemical compounds for use in various products. In its pure form or as an alloy, copper (Cu) is one of the most important metals in society. The pure metal has a face-centred...

U.S. automobile manufacturer, advocate of front-wheel-drive vehicles. Previously a racing car mechanic and driver, he became president of the Auburn Automobile Company (founded 1900), Auburn, Ind., in 1924. Two years later he acquired the Duesenberg...

French perfume manufacturer who acquired newspaper interests to advance his right-wing political and social views. By 1900 Coty’s small perfume business had become highly successful. In 1905 he opened a plant near Paris and during World War I became...

in petroleum refining, the process by which heavy hydrocarbon molecules are broken up into lighter molecules by means of heat and usually pressure and sometimes catalysts. Cracking is the most important process for the commercial production of gasoline...

any of a diverse group of machines that not only lift heavy objects but also shift them horizontally. Cranes are distinct from hoists, passenger elevators, and other devices intended solely or primarily for vertical lifting and from conveyors, which...

machine for separating and removing cream from whole milk; its operation is based on the fact that skim milk (milk with no butterfat) is heavier than cream. The separator consists of a centrifuge in the form of a rapidly revolving bowl containing a set...

French cabinetmaker, whose works are among the most renowned pieces of French furniture ever made. Grandson of a cabinetmaker of the same name and son of the sculptor François Cressent, Charles practiced both arts, becoming a brilliant metalworker as...

pot of clay or other refractory material. Used from ancient times as a container for melting or testing metals, crucibles were probably so named from the Latin word crux, “cross” or “trial.” Modern crucibles may be small laboratory utensils for conducting...

metallurgical furnace consisting essentially of a pot of refractory material that can be sealed. Crucibles of graphite or of high-grade fire clay were formerly used in the steel industry, heated directly by fire; modern high-quality steel is produced...

technique for producing fine or tool steel. The earliest known use of the technique occurred in India and central Asia in the early 1st millennium ce. The steel was produced by heating wrought iron with materials rich in carbon, such as charcoal in closed...

separation of gold or silver from impurities by melting the impure metal in a cupel (a flat, porous dish made of a refractory, or high-temperature-resistant, material) and then directing a blast of hot air on it in a special furnace. The impurities,...

in steelmaking, a vertical cylindrical furnace used for melting iron either for casting or for charging in other furnaces. René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur built the first cupola furnace on record, in France, about 1720. Cupola melting is still recognized...

any of an important group of alloys of copper and nickel; the alloy containing 25 percent nickel is used by many countries for coins. Because copper and nickel mix readily in the molten state, the useful range of alloys is not confined within any definite...

pioneer aviator and leading American manufacturer of aircraft by the time of the United States’s entry into World War I. Curtiss began his career in the bicycle business, earning fame as one of the leading cycle racers in western New York state. Fascinated...

method of extracting silver and gold from their ores by dissolving them in a dilute solution of sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide. The process was invented in 1887 by the Scottish chemists John S. MacArthur, Robert W. Forrest, and William Forrest....

British inventor and manufacturer of lenses. Showing an aptitude for science, Dallmeyer was apprenticed to an Osnabrück optician, and in 1851 he went to London, where he obtained work with an optician and later with Andrew Ross, a lens and telescope...

one of the famous steels of the pre-industrial era, typically made into weapon blades. Manufacture involved a secret carburization process in which a form of wrought iron was heated to red heat in contact with various carbonaceous materials in closed...

French automobile manufacturer, one of the first to plan mass production of motor vehicles. After obtaining experience as a draftsman in the Tarbes Arsenal, Darracq founded the Gladiator Cycle Company in 1891. He sold his company in 1896 and for a short...

French aircraft designer and industrialist whose companies built the most successful military aircraft in Europe in the decades after World War II. The son of a Jewish physician, Bloch obtained degrees in aeronautical design and electrical engineering...

founder of the sugar industry in Louisiana. Of noble Norman ancestry, de Boré was educated in France and served for 10 years in the household guard of Louis XV before he established himself as an indigo planter in Louisiana. When pests ruined the indigo...

English aircraft designer, manufacturer, and pioneer in long-distance jet flying. He was one of the first to make jet-propelled aircraft, producing the Vampire and Venom jet fighters. In 1910 he successfully built and flew an airplane with a 50-horsepower...

pioneer American inventor and manufacturer of agricultural implements. Apprenticed to a blacksmith at age 17, Deere set up his own smithy trade four years later and, for 12 years, did work in various towns of his native Vermont. In 1837, when 33 years...

American businessman and philanthropist whose company was at one time the largest agricultural-implement manufacturer in the world. Deering helped manage his family’s woolen mill in South Paris in western Maine. About 1850 he went to Illinois and Iowa...

in food processing, means by which many types of food can be preserved for indefinite periods by extracting the moisture, thereby inhibiting the growth of microorganisms. Dehydration is one of the oldest methods of food preservation and was used by prehistoric...

watch manufacturer who was among the first to adapt the concept of interchangeable parts to the production of pocket watches. He is generally credited with being the father of American mass-production watchmaking. Apprenticed at age 18 to a jeweler and...

Englishman noted for his design and construction of fine and historically important precision clocks and chronometers. Dent was apprenticed to Edward Gaudin in 1807 and may also have learned something of the clock maker’s trade from his cousin Richard...

American gunsmith who was the inventor of the Derringer pistol. He was the son of Henry Deringer, Sr., a colonial gunsmith who made Kentucky rifles. The younger Deringer began his career as an apprentice to a firearms maker in Richmond, Va. In 1806 he...

apparatus with a tackle rigged at the end of a beam for hoisting and lowering. Its name is derived from that of a famous early 17th-century hangman of Tyburn, Eng. In the petroleum industry, a derrick consisting of a framework or tower of wood or steel...

recovering tin from tinplate scrap. The scrap is placed in a solution of hot caustic soda to dissolve off the tin. The tin may then be recovered from the solution in various ways: in the form of sodium stannate, by evaporation and crystallization; in...

process by which glassy substances change their structure into that of crystalline solids. Most glasses are silicates (compounds of silicon, oxygen, and metals) in which the atomic structure does not have the repetitive arrangement required for the formation...

American engineer and historian of science. Dibner arrived in the United States in 1904. After graduating from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic University), New York City, in 1921, he worked with the Electric Bond and Share Company...

tool or device for imparting a desired shape, form, or finish to a material. Examples include a perforated block through which metal or plastic is drawn or extruded, the hardened steel forms for producing the patterns on coins and medals by pressure,...

forming metal objects by injecting molten metal under pressure into dies, or molds. An early and important use of the technique was in the Mergenthaler Linotype machine (1884) to give line-long combinations of letters, but the appearance of the mass-production...

method by which the temperature of an electrically nonconducting (insulating) material can be raised by subjecting the material to a high-frequency electromagnetic field. The method is widely employed industrially for heating thermosetting glues, for...

process of machining a cavity in a steel block to be used for molding plastics, or for hot and cold forging, die-casting, and coining. The die block is mounted on a table while a vertical-spindle milling machine with end cutters is used to shape the...

American inventor and manufacturer who pioneered in the industrial use of graphite. Originally a printer and lithographer, Dixon discovered in experiments with typecasting that graphite crucibles withstood high temperatures. In 1827 he began the manufacture...

English sculptor who was influential in the promotion and development of modern sculpture in England. The son of a commercial artist, Dobson studied art in Arbroath, Scotland, from 1906 to 1910 and then at the City and Guilds of London Art School until...

British optician who, though lacking a theoretical background, invented the triple achromatic lens still in wide use, made substantial improvements in the astronomical refracting telescope, and improved navigation instruments of his day. In 1765 he combined...

production system widespread in 17th-century western Europe in which merchant-employers “put out” materials to rural producers who usually worked in their homes but sometimes laboured in workshops or in turn put out work to others. Finished products...

developer of a commercial application of the so-called Fourdrinier machine for making paper and inventor of the composition roller used in printing. While serving as an apprentice to a papermaker, John Hall, in Dartford, Kent, Donkin was engaged to perfect...

pioneer German aircraft designer and builder. Dornier completed his education in 1907 at Munich’s technical college and three years later began working for Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin, at the Zeppelin airship factory at Friedrichshafen. In 1911 he designed...

American aircraft designer who founded the Douglas Aircraft Company. Douglas assisted Jerome C. Hunsaker in building the first wind tunnel, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (1914–15), and was chief engineer for the Glenn L. Martin...

pioneer in the American chemical industry and founder of the Dow Chemical Company. Dow first became interested in brines (concentrated solutions of salts and water) while attending Case School of Applied Science (now Case Western Reserve University)...

cylindrical end-cutting tool used to originate or enlarge circular holes in solid material. Usually, drills are rotated by a drilling machine and fed into stationary work, but on other types of machines a stationary drill may be fed into rotating work...

device for producing holes in hard substances. The drill is held in a rotating spindle and is fed into the workpiece, which is usually clamped in a vise resting on a table. The drill may be gripped in a chuck with three jaws that move radially in unison,...

Process of shaping metal and increasing its strength. In most forging, an upper die is forced against a heated workpiece positioned on a stationary lower die. If the upper die or hammer is dropped, the process is known as drop forging. To increase the...

in packaging, cylindrical container commonly made of metal or fibreboard. Steel drums with capacities ranging up to 100 U.S. gallons (379 litres) have been produced since about 1903; the sizes less than 12 gallons (45 litres) are called pails. The most...

System of cleaning textiles with chemical solvents instead of water. The chemicals, often halides or organohalogens (compounds that contain halogen atoms bonded to carbon atoms), dissolve dirt and grease from fabrics. Carbon tetrachloride was once widely...

French-descended American family whose fortune was founded on explosive powders and textiles and who diversified later into other areas of manufacturing. Pierre-Samuel du Pont, born in Paris, was one of the main writers of the physiocratic school of...

manufacturer and the largest American munitions producer during World War I. Pierre Samuel du Pont was the great-great-grandson and namesake of the French economist, whose son, Éleuthère Iréné du Pont, began the family’s fortunes in America in 1802....

American tobacco magnate and philanthropist. The son of Washington Duke, who had entered the tobacco business after the American Civil War, James entered the family business with his brother Benjamin (1855–1929). When the principal American cigarette-manufacturing...

strong, hard, lightweight alloy of aluminum, widely used in aircraft construction, discovered in 1906 and patented in 1909 by Alfred Wilm, a German metallurgist; it was originally made only at the company Dürener Metallwerke at Düren, Germany. (The name...

American industrialist and founder of General Motors Corporation, which later became one of the largest corporations in the world in terms of sales. After establishing a carriage company in Michigan in 1886, Durant took over a small firm in 1903 and...

brass with a yellow colour simulating that of gold. The percentage of copper ranges from 85 to 88, the remainder being zinc. As the zinc content becomes higher, the colour becomes paler. Highly ductile and malleable, Dutch metal is used in bronzing and...

first of the distinguished English potters, producer of works in stoneware. After taking the degree of bachelor of civil law at Christ Church, Oxford, Dwight was appointed registrar and scribe to the diocese of Chester. In 1665 he moved to Wigan and...

British-born American patent-medicine king, glassmaker, temperance advocate, and reformer. His “picture bottles” have special value as antiques. A druggist’s apprentice in London, Dyott arrived in Philadelphia in the 1790s almost penniless and rented...

American engineer best known for his triple-arch steel bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Mo. (1874). Another project provided a year-round navigation channel for New Orleans by means of jetties (1879). Eads was named for his mother’s cousin...

English watchmaker, the first to simplify and economize in producing chronometers so as to make them available to the general public. Earnshaw became an apprentice at the age of 14 and later set up a shop in London. He made significant improvements in...

American entrepreneur and inventor whose introduction of the first Kodak camera helped to promote amateur photography on a large scale. After his education in the public schools of Rochester, New York, Eastman worked briefly for an insurance company...

U.S.-Canadian industrialist and philanthropist, founder of the Republic Steel Corporation (1930). While a student, Eaton was persuaded by John D. Rockefeller to forego joining the ministry and become a businessman instead. Starting in business in 1907,...

German aeronautical engineer and commander of the first lighter-than-air aircraft to fly around the world. As a member of the firm operated by Ferdinand, Count von Zeppelin, Eckener helped to develop the rigid airships of the early 1900s. During World...

American engineer and coinventor of the first general-purpose electronic computer, a digital machine that was the prototype for most computers in use today. Eckert was educated at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania,...

heating chamber with electricity as the heat source for achieving very high temperatures to melt and alloy metals and refractories. The electricity has no electrochemical effect on the metal but simply heats it. Modern electric furnaces generally are...

making duplicates by electroplating metal onto a mold of an object, then removing the mold. Intricate surface details are exactly reproduced by this process, which is used to make masters for pressing phonograph records. Electroforming is also used for...

nonelectrical plating of metals and plastics to achieve uniform coatings by a process of controlled autocatalytic (self-continuing) reduction. Discovered in 1944 by A. Brenner and G.E. Riddell, electroless plating involves the deposition of such metals...

process of coating with metal by means of an electric current. Plating metal may be transferred to conductive surfaces (metals) or to nonconductive surfaces (plastics, wood, leather) after the latter have been rendered conductive by such processes as...

electrochemical process of smoothing a metallic surface. The metallic object is made the anode in an electrolytic reaction so controlled that its high spots dissolve, until only a smooth surface remains. Electropolishing is the reverse of the process...

electroforming process for making duplicate plates for relief, or letterpress, printing. The process was first announced in 1838 by M.H. von Jacobi, a German working in St. Petersburg, Russia. Thomas Spencer and C.J. Jordan of England and Joseph A. Adams...

natural or artificial alloy of gold with at least 20 percent silver, which was used to make the first known coins in the Western world. Most natural electrum contains copper, iron, palladium, bismuth, and perhaps other metals. The colour varies from...

car that moves in a vertical shaft to carry passengers or freight between the levels of a multistory building. Most modern elevators are propelled by electric motors, with the aid of a counterweight, through a system of cables and sheaves (pulleys)....

art of producing raised patterns on the surface of metal, leather, textiles, paper, and other similar substances. Strictly speaking, the term is applicable only to raised impressions produced by means of engraved dies or plates. Crests, monograms, and...

glassware decorated with finely carved, three-dimensional patterns or pictures. The most common engraving technique involves incising a design into glass with a rapidly spinning copper wheel fed with abrasives. Other techniques include diamond scribing...

the process of growing a crystal of a particular orientation on top of another crystal, where the orientation is determined by the underlying crystal. The creation of various layers in semiconductor wafers, such as those used in integrated circuits,...

American inventor who pioneered the high-pressure steam engine (U.S. patent, 1790) and created the first continuous production line (1784). Evans was apprenticed to a wheelwright at the age of 16. Observing the trick of a blacksmith’s boy who used the...

Norwegian-American inventor of the first commercially successful outboard marine internal-combustion engine. Evinrude began work on this project in 1906 and by 1909 had developed a one-cylinder power plant rated at 1.5 horsepower. Subsequent outboard...

process in which metal or other material is forced through a series of dies to create desired shapes. Many ceramics are manufactured by extrusion, because the process allows efficient, continuous production. In a commercial screw-type extruder, a screw...

German businessman who, with his brother Lothar, expanded his family’s pencil company into a global art supplies enterprise. Faber moved to the United States in 1849 and built a manufacturing plant in 1861, the first large-scale American pencil factory,...

German entrepreneur who expanded a family pencil business into a worldwide firm preeminent in the manufacture of writing products and art supplies. Taking over a pencil business started by his great-grandfather Kaspar Faber (died 1784) near Nürnberg,...

French aviation pioneer and aircraft builder who popularized the use of ailerons, moveable surfaces on the trailing edge of a wing that provide a means of lateral control. Farman, the son of British citizens living in France, was first a painter, then...

French aircraft designer and manufacturer who contributed greatly to early aviation. A champion bicyclist, he also distinguished himself as an automobile racing driver. With his brother Henri, Maurice made the first circular flight of more than one kilometre...

In construction, connectors between structural members. Bolted connections are used when it is necessary to fasten two elements tightly together, especially to resist shear and bending, as in column and beam connections. Threaded metal bolts are always...

method by which animal and plant substances are prepared for eating by humans. The oil and fat products used for edible purposes can be divided into two distinct classes: liquid oils, such as olive oil, peanut oil, soybean oil, or sunflower oil; and...

American inventor and manufacturer of electronic musical instruments. Together with George Fullerton, Fender developed the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar, in 1948. Called the Fender Broadcaster (renamed the Telecaster in 1950), it was...

British industrialist who designed and manufactured agricultural machines, notably the Ferguson tractor. Ferguson began in 1900 to sell and repair automobiles and motorcycles, and in 1909 he designed and built his own airplane, in which he made the first...

Italian automobile manufacturer, designer, and racing-car driver whose Ferrari cars often dominated world racing competition in the second half of the 20th century. Ferrari raced test cars for a small automobile company in Milan after World War I. In...

an alloy of iron (less than 50 percent) and one or more other metals, important as a source of various metallic elements in the production of alloy steels. The principal ferroalloys are ferromanganese, ferrochromium, ferromolybdenum, ferrotitanium, ferrovanadium,...

alloy of chromium with 30 to 50 percent iron, used to incorporate chromium into steel. It is produced in an electric furnace using chromium ore, iron or iron ore, and carbon, usually anthracite coal. In the intense heat the carbon reduces the metal oxides...

Early method of converting cast iron to wrought iron, superseding the bloomery process after blast furnaces became widespread. Pieces of cast iron (see pig iron) were placed on a finery hearth, on which charcoal was being burned with a plentiful supply...

American industrialist noted for his establishment of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, which was for some 80 years a major U.S. tire manufacturer. Firestone reportedly had driven the first rubber-tired buggy in Detroit, while working as a manager...

preparation of seafood and freshwater fish for human consumption. The word fish is commonly used to describe all forms of edible finfish, mollusks (e.g., clams and oysters), and crustaceans (e.g., crabs and lobsters) that inhabit an aquatic environment....

American automobile-body manufacturer. He was the eldest of 11 children and worked for his father, a carriage maker, before moving to Detroit in 1902. From 1908 to 1916 he and five of his brothers formed several companies that built bodies for cars....

in mineral processing, method used to separate and concentrate ores by altering their surfaces to a hydrophobic or hydrophilic condition—that is, the surfaces are either repelled or attracted by water. The flotation process was developed on a commercial...

instrument consisting of a surface containing chemicals called phosphors that glow when struck by X rays or gamma rays; it is used to transform images made up of invisible radiations into visible light. In a procedure called fluoroscopy, a beam of penetrating...

in metallurgy, any substance introduced in the smelting of ores to promote fluidity and to remove objectionable impurities in the form of slag. Limestone is commonly used for this purpose in smelting iron ores. Other materials used as fluxes are silica,...

solid metal that has been reduced to a leaflike thinness by mechanical beating or rolling. Jewellers have long used a thin foil of copper-zinc alloy as backing for paste jewels and inferior gemstones. The colour and lustre of the gems is heightened by...